Joel Wing explains the diplomatic withdrawal:
The U.S. currently has a series of branch embassy offices throughout Iraq that would be closed down by 2014. The State Department is also due to take over the police training program in Iraq from the military, and that too will come to end in 3-5 years. The 16 Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) would also be consolidated into three offices and two consulates, before being phased out as well. After five years then, the U.S. diplomatic presence in Iraq would consist of the American embassy in Baghdad, an office in charge of military sales, and a consulate in southern Iraq and one in the north based upon the PRTs.
Still: no government; al Qaeda able to score a major attack deep in the Green Zone; and the Awakening movement is being left out to dry. But repeat after me: the surge worked. If you say it often enough, as every Washingtonian does, you may even come to believe it.